It is vitally important that the democratisation of flying – a truly great
social revolution – is kept on track, and for that London and the south of
the country will need one more runway

Snobs have never liked capitalism. They resent it for democratising previously exclusive goods and services, eventually making them available at affordable prices to millions of regular folk.

Aviation is a case in point: when the first commercial passenger jets were introduced in the Fifties by the British Overseas Airways Corporation, only the very rich could afford to travel by plane.

Passenger numbers were tiny; tickets exorbitantly priced; and people dressed up for the occasion. But for those who could afford the ride, it was a wonderful, stress-free experience, with passengers treated like minor royals. They were part of the “jet set”, an expression that nobody uses any longer, and for good reason: flying is no longer special. It has gone mass-market.

For the small minority that used to fly in the Fifties and Sixties, there are downsides, of course: queues have lengthened dramatically, service is impersonal, planes are like giant buses and governments impose intrusive anti-terrorist checks. But vast numbers of people can now go on holiday abroad, visit relatives in the US, Australia or Pakistan, or treat themselves to a weekend break in Prague.

It’s amazing social progress for the 6m Brits who now travel abroad every year, which is why it is so disappointing to see old-fashioned snobs uniting with supposedly modern environmentalists to condemn so-called “binge-fliers” (in reality, ordinary folk enjoying themselves).

The idea that the poor must be kept in their place, in more ways than one, is hardly new. Even the Duke of Wellington, a great British hero, fell into a similar trap in his later life, attacking the prospect of mass railway travel. The Duke hated the phenomenon, the 19th century equivalent of today’s cheap-flight revolution: he thought railways would “only encourage the lower classes to move about needlessly”.

Needless to say, he and the rest of the old establishment could afford carriages and private transportation, unlike the working classes.

It is in this context that the row over airport expansion needs to be seen. Of course, there is a genuine debate to be had about where the extra capacity should be built, how to make sure planes continue to be quieter and even more fuel-efficient, and to find new ways of compensating losers, but Sir Howard Davies’ preliminary findings are eminently sensible. We need more capacity because that is the only way that prices will be kept low and that families will be able to continue to afford to fly.

It is vitally important that the democratisation of flying – a truly great social revolution – is kept on track, and for that London and the south of the country will need one more runway at the latest by 2030 and another by 2050.

At the start of the Seventies, 40m passengers passed through Britain’s airports every year. A decade later, this had reached 60m – and after that demand exploded, with 100m a year in 1990 and 211m in 2010, despite the recession.

Britain’s top airport, Heathrow, handles more passengers every year than all British airports put together did before Sir Richard Branson founded Virgin Atlantic in 1984. In fact, easyJet’s latest annual global passenger numbers are equivalent to the UK’s entire air travel market of the early Eighties.

Aviation is a giant free-market success story: whenever entrepreneurs have been allowed to innovate, and monopolies removed, huge strides have been made. The first shift took place in 1977, when Sir Freddie Laker, following a long struggle, was finally allowed to launch a new airline; then came US airline deregulation, Branson, privatisation, the end of monopolies and further international deregulation; and finally modern short-haul, low-cost airlines in the early Nineties, followed by the EU-US Open Skies agreement.

By last year, Ryanair was the world’s biggest airline in terms of international passengers carried; easyJet was third. The next step will be the emergence of transatlantic and long-distance low-cost carriers, especially from Gatwick.

Crucially, this explosion in air travel has benefited the poor. The numbers of flights taken by low-income earners is striking: 13.2 m passengers earned less than £17,250 per year, according to figures from the Civil Aviation Authority. Of course, some of these people travelled several times but the social spectrum of contemporary fliers is remarkable.

A brilliant analysis by Kristian Niemitz, of the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), suggests that a further expansion of air travel, especially if prices stay low, will disproportionately benefit those on low incomes.

There is now little difference in flying behaviour between members of the A/B and C1 socio-economic groups, a saturated segment (itself a remarkable change) but those in the C2, D and E groups still fly much less. It is they who will pay the price if airport capacity isn’t increased and prices continue to increase.

Contrary to what some continue to claim, taxes on airline travel are already so high that the cost of pollution is more than covered. The IEA research shows that air passenger duty levels in 2007, before the tax was massively increased, were already “right” on the basis of official Department for Transport calculations: airline companies and their clients paid for between 90pc and 119pc of the social cost they caused. The recent tax rises should therefore be reversed, and the EU emissions trading scheme should be ditched.

But the one area where free enterprise has been stymied is airport capacity: the old state-created private monopoly has been broken up but politicians have blocked all proposals to build new runways. This has pushed up prices, reduced reliability and turned flying into an unnecessarily miserable experience. That is what must now change.

So which proposal is best? While attractive in some respects, Boris Johnson’s Isle of Grain scheme is looking increasingly implausible.

Davies’ estimate of the cost is crippling – it would cost five times more than the three shortlisted proposals. It would need an unacceptably high taxpayer contribution and could damage the M4 corridor’s economy, which runs from central London to Reading and Slough. It would require shutting not just Heathrow but also City Airport. I am sympathetic towards the Mayor’s ambition but he is running out of time.

The most interesting of the shortlisted proposals is the Heathrow Hub: one of the existing runways would be extended, and then cleverly turned into two separate strips. Gatwick is a sensible option and could be the compromise solution.

Building a third runway at Heathrow would be trickiest politically – but even that would be better than nothing. Ultimately, the only thing that really matters is delivering greater airport capacity before it is too late.

George Clooney’s character Ryan Bingham in Up in the Air, the Hollywood blockbuster, had it right: “Make no mistake, moving is living.” For the sake of ensuring that the poor aren’t priced back out of air travel, our political classes must stop prevaricating and pledge to deliver whatever proposal Sir Howard finally settles on.